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by pridecookies



Series: (femHawke x Anders One Shots) The Healer Has the Bloodiest Hands. [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mage Rebellion, Mage Rights, One Shot, One Shot Collection, lol jk its way harder than that, poor anders and hawke, they just need to talk shit out ya know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pridecookies/pseuds/pridecookies
Summary: Hawke and Anders deal with the growing tensions in Kirkwall and their opposing ideologies.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age), Anders/Hawke/Justice, handers
Series: (femHawke x Anders One Shots) The Healer Has the Bloodiest Hands. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943800
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just love these motherfuckers.

It was dark in the house, the fires were lit but it still felt cold. Hawke looked around the corridors, in each room, and finally found Anders. He was sitting at his desk, bent over something, scribbling madly. Occasionally, he let out a kind of exhausted sigh. She leaned against the doorframe for a moment and watched him. What she saw was a far cry from the healer she met years ago, warm and compassionate and kind. This man felt different. He looked like Anders, talked like Anders. But pieces of him were breaking off, moment by moment, and she was powerless to catch them and put them back together. He had become so overwhelmed with his fixation that even when he was looking at her, she knew he couldn’t fully see her. It was like living with a shadow, sleeping with a spectre. There was love there but it was tainted. Justice did not share and he did not tolerate being second. Hawke could never be first, had never been first. There was no room. Anders’ hair was mussed and he kept pushing it back as he wrote. He didn’t register that she was there. 

“You need to eat,” Hawke murmured, standing behind him and laying a hand on his shoulder. He started a moment, then settled and held her hand there with his own but his eyes didn’t leave the page.

“I’m fine, love.”

“No,” Hawke sighed and sat on the table, “You aren’t. Please, look at me.” Anders glanced up. Hawke crossed her arms, “You really are not. It’s all over the house, this shit.”

He returned to his page. “Maybe you should read it then, it would help you understand.”

“Anders,” she sighed, “I do understand, I care about what’s happening to them. I don’t hate that you’re fighting for this. I just hate that you never shut up about it.”

“You want me to ‘shut up’ about the violation of basic rights? Just, what? Stop _talking_ about it?” He picked up the paper and starting reading, “Andraste suffered at the hands of magisters—” 

“Anders.”

“Thus, she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the magisters' actions in the Black City, why would He still gift us with it?” he continued. 

“Please—”

“The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker—”

“Why are you reading this to me?”

“ _Because you don’t understand and I need you to_.”

She paused for a moment, “Who am I talking to right now?” she said, her tone accusing. Anders narrowed his eyes.

“Ask Bethany if she agrees with me,” he said off handedly. “Oh, sorry. I had forgotten. You can’t. She isn’t here.”

Hawke felt like she had been slapped. Normally, she was relatively stoic in her expression, but she felt herself buckle over slightly. “That was low,” she said quietly.

“It was your fault.”

“Don’t bring my family into this,” she snapped.

“Yes, your _family_. And yet you leave her to the Circle.”

“Leave her?” Hawke pushed herself off the desk and faced him, “I didn’t leave her, I didn’t do a damn thing!”

“Exactly!” Anders said, turning in his seat, his eyes locked on her with a kind of focus she was not used to from him. “They took her and _you allowed it_.”

“What did you expect me to do?”

“We could have gotten her out, taking her somewhere else. Conscripted her, something.”

“Conscripted her? Are you insane? That doesn’t make sense. Anders, you left the Wardens. You would have me give my sister to the Wardens and shorten her life?”

“You gave her to the Circle, you might have done just that. Who knows what will happen to her now? Your inaction makes you responsible for her death if it comes to that.”

Hawke stared at him, her mouth hanging open. For a moment, she felt sick. “That’s so cruel,” she breathed, “I cannot believe you would say that to me.”

Anders closed his eyes, resting his head in his hands, “I’m not—” he paused, “I’m not trying to be cruel. I am trying to show you _how important this is_. ”

“That’s bullshit. You aren’t trying to show me anything, Justice is.”

He looked up at her again, guarded this time. “We’re the same, I’ve told you that over and over again. Why you can’t seem to listen is beyond me. Justice is part of who I am.”

“I didn’t ask Justice into my life. I didn’t ask Justice into my home. I certainly didn’t ask Justice into my bed. I asked you.”

“You don’t get to choose what part of me you want and what part you discard.”

“That is not what I am saying, don’t turn this back on me.”

“You didn’t know me before Justice.”

“I know enough.”

“I was an entirely different man. The things you say you love about me aren’t even me.”

“For once in your goddamn life, Anders. Listen to another voice besides the one screaming into the void in your head. Listen to me. You were not made a better man by Justice. You knew mages deserved better. You joined with Justice because you wanted to help them. It was a _foolish_ fucking idea but you did it because you wanted to _do_ something. He didn’t make you compassionate. The Maker did and you’re right—” she put her hands on his shoulders, pleading with him to look at her, “—he made you a mage and Bethany a mage and my father a mage _and it isn’t wrong_. But being a mage isn’t _all you are_. This,” she dropped her hands and picked up the crumpled manifesto, “and the work you’re doing with the mage underground, it _scares_ me. It’s something I don’t know how to handle and you aren’t making it easier.”  
“It scares you for the wrong reasons, Hawke. You’re scared because extremes are frightening, but extremes are all mages have left. You should be scared because of what I told you I’ve seen in the Gallows, the kinds of atrocities that are being committed.”

“I’m scared for _you_.”

“I’m not the one who is held captive by the Circle.”  
Hawke almost rolled her eyes, “Save the romantic revolutionary act for Varric’s book.”

Anders' expression changed from focused determination to a somber discouragement. She didn’t mean to, but she had opened and wound and rubbed salt in it. 

“I’m sorry,” Hawke murmured, “I just—” she felt her throat close up, “We used to be able to talk about these things and I felt like you were listening. You’re not listening anymore.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” he murmured. Anders closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair, rubbing them furiously with his fingertips. All hostility had faded into exhaustion and his body was resting in such a way that he looked loaded down with a thousand different things. “I’m _angry_ , Hawke,” he said after a moment. His voice was quiet, vulnerable. Hawke knelt down and rested her head on his lap, circling his waist with her arms.

“I know,” she murmured.

His body tensed and his fists were clenched, “ _I’m so angry_.”

“I know you are,” she said, encouragingly, “You are going to help them.”

“Yes,” he sighed, “I am.”

Hawke glanced up, “It’s going to be fine. But you can’t hide things from me.”

They stayed like that for a moment, in the silence and the quiet. Anders was absentmindedly running a hand in her hair and she tried to focus on the sensation and calm herself down. It reminded her of the early years, when things were less complicated and her life felt less contorted. Kirkwall had always had its particular brand of chaos but it had increased in intensity as time went on. Anders had always been intense about mage freedom and Hawke had been understanding, but she had always operated as an advocate for reason when he began to lose focus and fixate. He used to like that, he said it kept him anchored, he valued when she challenged him. He didn’t seem to like it anymore. Hawke was deep in thought when she realized his body had stiffened and he was no longer running a hand in her hair. She looked up and he was looking back down at her, unsure. 

“Maybe this was a mistake,” he murmured. 

He started to pull away from her. 

_Don’t you fucking dare._

“You’re kidding me. Not this again, please.”

Anders pulled away from her and walked across the room and faced the fireplace, his arms crossed and his tone somewhat detached.

“I told you I would bring a mess into your life, now that I have you’re angry with me. I warned you but you didn’t listen. I told you the truth the first time. Look where we are.”

“Anders, we’re fine. That’s not why I am angry with you at all. I am just trying to—”

“I love you.”

“I know you do.”

“Still, I hurt you. I keep doing it knowingly and I think we need to accept that.”

Hawke took in a deep breath and walked over to where he was standing, forcing him to look at her again with her hands on his face, directing his eyes to hers. “I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. Why do you think we are having this conversation? Because you do.”

“It doesn’t matter, I want you here.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Hawke removed her hands and gritted her teeth, “Don’t tell me what to want or what I should or shouldn’t do, Anders. We’re fine. It’s all fine.”

“Just because you fell in love with—”

She threw up her hands, “I didn’t _fall in love_ with anyone. You told me the truth and I listened and made a decision. Falling makes it sound like an accident. It wasn’t an accident. It was on purpose. I love you on purpose. It’s a conscious decision _I am still making_.”

Anders didn’t respond. He looked back at the fireplace.

“Once we take care of the Circle—” he said darkly. 

“Then there will be something else. There are always going to be injustices. There are always going to be things to fight. It never ends. There will never be justice outside the Fade.”

He took in a deep breath, glanced at her, then returned to his desk. 

“Kirkwall’s Circle is the priority,” he said, looking over the crumpled papers, “For now.”

Hawke ran a hand through her hair and let out an exasperated sigh, “You are so fixated on that. The Circle isn’t as bad as you make it out to be.”

Anders stopped and turned to her, his eyes wide, “What? What did you just say?”

Hawke crossed her arms, “Forget it. I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m so tired. I’m exhausted, Anders,” she sighed, starting to feel lightheaded. 

He clenched his fist, “I have been at the clinic all day. What’s your excuse?”

“We’re done with this conversation,” Hawke snapped and started to walk away.

“ _You_ can be done, you’re not a mage,” he followed her, his voice raised, “What a privilege. You’re not living it, that must be lovely. You say the Circle isn’t that bad but you’ve never been forced into confinement by it.”

“I’m sorry—” Hawke turned, her tone defensive. 

“You weren’t _ripped_ from your family,” Anders was yelling now, but not at her. He was starting to breathe harder, screaming into the void. Hawke stepped toward him.

“I know—” she said, attempting to appease. 

“You weren’t forced to watch someone you love ripped from _themselves_ , become nothing—” She could tell he was losing control, a familiar energy began to peek through in cracks and his eyes were starting to be overcome by the light.

“Anders, calm down. Justice is—”

“Maybe it’s better this way. Justice can do more that way if I let him.”

“Stop it. Right now,” she said, grabbing his arms.

“I... can’t,” he groaned out, breathing harder than before. 

“Yes, you can,” she commanded, shaking him, “Anders. Stop.”

Then, with deep breaths, the light began to subside. He had avoided an entire override. She had seen it several times before and there was never a moment when it didn’t frighten her. It wasn’t just watching him lose control, but what happened when he did. Now when she closed her eyes at night, she saw the terror in Ella’s eyes as he stood over her. 

_I almost killed an innocent little girl_ , he had said. _If you weren’t here_ —

She involuntarily shuddered at the thought. Hawke laid her forehead against his.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she murmured, “I know how you feel about it. But you can’t change the Chantry. I wish you would stop trying so hard, you’re going to kill yourself.”

“More likely someone else will.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he spat and pulled away from her, returning to his desk. 

She watched him go and tried one last time to reach him. “Put that away,” she asked, “Tell me something useless. Make a shitty joke. Complain about how Kirkwall smells. Talk about anything with me, for just five minutes. Forget this. Give me the mundane for five minutes.”

Anders didn’t turn around.

“Don’t ask me to do that.”

“How is that mage boy? You said you were helping him.”

“I was.”

“How is he?”

“I don’t know,” he glanced at her, “Templars found him and sent him to the Circle.”

Hawke fought that familiar nausea creeping up again. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

“You say justice doesn’t exist outside the Fade,” he said softly, “But it does. It _has_ to.” It was quiet for a moment. Hawke felt foreign in her own body and stood there without any sense of direction. Anders sighed and turned to her, leaning on the desk. “Don’t ask me to change who I am,” he pleaded, “That’s all anyone has ever done. I can’t take it from you too. Not from you. I can’t bear it from you.”

“I didn’t mean—”

He turned back to the desk, “Just go to bed, Hawke.”

Her body felt heavy and leaden, “Are you coming?”

“Not right now.”

“I want you to,” she said quietly. 

Anders leaned on the desk, his eyes closed, “I can’t give you what you want right now.”

Despite herself, Hawke felt like she was going to cry. She wasn’t a woman prone to tears and it disturbed her how often she felt like crying lately. 

“I don’t know who you are today,” she said.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Hawke took in a breath, in and out in her lungs, and turned around to leave. Then, she stopped for a moment and looked back at him.

“If I asked you to leave Kirkwall,” she asked, her tone demanding, “would you go?”

Anders turned to her, “What?”

“Leave Kirkwall. If I wanted to leave, find somewhere else. Would you go?”

He scoffed, “You would never leave Kirkwall.”

“I want to know.”

They stood there a moment, facing each other in a kind of stand off. 

“No,” he said finally. 

Hawke’s lip twitched and her eyes narrowed, “Even for me, you wouldn’t go.”

“Do you think you’re more important than what is happening here? Then the hundreds of lives enslaved to a system that is built to oppress them, to make them lesser?”

“I see.”

“Besides, that’s an unfair question. It’s baited.”

“No, it isn’t. You know, I always knew I wouldn’t be the only important thing,” she accused, “I just never thought I would be the less important thing.”

Anders dropped the defense and was walking toward her now, “Hawke, that isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, holding her arms out against him.

He looked at her for a moment, his expression pained. Anders took a step toward her, grabbing at the sides of her arms and forcing her gaze, holding her face in his hands. Hawke didn’t move, she didn’t respond to his touch, she didn’t return his intensity. She was numb.

“You are _not_ less important. I would drown us in blood to keep you safe.”

She remained frigid in his grasp and looked up at him with a flat expression “Then I wouldn’t be safe, would I?” she murmured, removed herself from his arms, “I just would just be drowning in blood.” Anders searched her expression for a semblance of affection but found none. “I’m going to bed.”

He grabbed at her hand, “Don’t just—”

“Stop,” she shrugged it off, “Sleep somewhere else, please. I—” she resisted the urge to scream, “—I can’t have you in my bed tonight. I can’t.”

“It’s our bed,” he said softly.

“It’s my house,” she said, walking away, “This isn’t your home. You’re just living here.”

She left him there, watching her go. 

* * *

Hawke sat alone in their bedroom, her eyes lazily looking over the fire. It was warm in the room but her chest felt cold as ice, like a lake frozen over and buckling under the weight of something. It was easy for her to get angry lately, with everyone. There was so much that she felt and didn’t know how to express, a deep rage that was barely held back in her bones. Sometimes she wondered if she was really angry or it was just easier to give into rage than to grief. Sarah knew somewhere, in a place that she rarely went inside, her father would be ashamed of her. It was clear in her mind, little fragments of memory, broken but vibrant. Bethany played in the grass and Malcolm watched over her, his brow riddled with concern. 

_Take care of your sister, Sarah_ , he said. _She will never truly be safe._

Sarah stood up, pacing the room, shaking. It felt like her skin was vibrating with the force of every feeling she had denied. But there was something new there, coming to the surface with violence. She knew what the feeling was, she had felt it so many times in her life. When Malcolm had caught her stealing in the kitchen. When that stable boy told her he didn’t want her. When her mother screamed over Carver’s dead body, Sarah felt it then. It was _shame_. If her father was here, he would have cursed her apathy and prompted her to fight harder for Kirkwall and for Bethany to have a choice to leave or stay with the Circle. The freedom to choose was always something he believed in. 

_Bethany._

A flash of a little girl, standing in the sun, arcane fire in her hands.

_They took her and you allowed it._

Sarah winced and she felt her chest grow tighter. Was he right? Was there more she could have done? Was she wrong, to let her go? She had thought at the time that it was best to let Bethany have a safe place with other mages, but now she wasn’t so sure. Sarah closed her eyes and remembered a morning in the sun in Hightown. She was looking for work and waiting for payment for a job they had just completed. Leaning against a pillar was Bethany. Young and beautiful and wise. Anders was listening intently to whatever it was that she was saying and Sarah smiled. Even then, so soon after she had met him, she knew he would ruin her. Frankly, he had already started to. It was easier to love her family, focus on the day to day financials. Anders made everything brighter and darker at once. It was hard not to be swept up in his current. Hawke didn’t hear their entire conversation, but she heard the end of it. 

_You were lucky to have your father, someone that loved you that could teach you_ , he said. _Many mages would kill for that._

_You remind me of him, you know._

Sarah closed her eyes, shutting the memory out.

Anders was slipping away from her and she felt it. It was so clear in the stillness when he thought she didn’t see. There would be things he would say, off handedly and casual, that she would ruminate on later and shudder involuntarily. Warm nights, cold ale with their friends at the Hanged Man. 

_Justice doesn’t let me drink anymore._

Holding the tabby that she gave him, languid and peaceful and at home. 

_Justice felt Ser Pounce was enslaved, he wanted me to let him go._

Hawke leaned against the bedpost. The fire was lit and the way the light danced in the room brought more than just warmth. Sarah ran a hand through her hair and rubbed her eyes. It was so many years ago, when things were complicated and yet so much simpler than they were now. Maker, she was scared that night. Her expression didn’t show it but at the time, she was so scared. Thousands of fears played out in her head, questions left unanswered and hopes she dare not suggest. Still, Hawke left her door open. In that small act, her heart had opened itself to more ache than she was ready for and her bed was opened to more love than she thought possible. But there was something she never forgot. 

_Justice does not approve of you._

It was cruel of her to say what she did. She knew how he felt about having a safe place, a home. He was torn from it and sent to the cold of the Circle and had known nothing else since. Nothing but her. And she took that from him. Anders could be cruel and it was inexcusable, she knew that. But she also knew that it was not so easy to dissuade an Abomination. There were forces he was fighting at all times and she used to be understanding. Somehow, she had stopped listening to him too. Hawke was afraid of what would happen to him if she walked away. Not just him, but to everything he touched. 

Hawke felt it rising again. The grief, the feeling of losing control. It was choking her, prompting her to scream and purge her body of it. Her breathing became ragged and she felt the panic grip at every inch of her. Without holding back, she screamed. Crying out into an empty bedroom and an empty house. Hawke cried out so loud that the sound was almost primal, what you would hear from a mother mourning its young. As she did, it took so much from her. Somehow, the ache it left in her throat was comforting. It reminded her she was still alive. Hawke buckled over and fell on her knees and sobbed for a while, alone. Rocking back and forth until she stilled, she leaned against the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. Somehow, she fell asleep like that. Alone.

* * *

Anders had not come home. Hawke woke with a start and her limbs were stiff and sore from falling asleep like that. She walked downstairs and looked around for him, more frantic in her search as she found each room empty. Her mother called out to her but she ignored her. Hawke grabbed her dagger sheave and strapped it to her thigh and left the estate. She knew where he would be. It was where he always was. 

* * *

When Hawke got to the clinic, it was more quiet than she had expected. It was likely because Anders had started to work with the underground to smuggle mages _out_ of Kirkwall, so there were less asking for care. But still, he was occupied. Hawke felt foreign in her body again, so unsure of what to say or do. His expression was cold and focused and she often wondered what he was thinking when he was like that. Sometimes she would catch little glimpses, little faint moments of freedom in his gaze where it felt like he wasn’t shackled to anything. There wasn’t the burden of purpose he felt with the mage rebellion, there was no lingering doubt about whether or not he deserved her. When she saw that, it lit her on fire. It hurt because she knew it was fleeting, but she was more than happy to let it burn her. 

He glanced up and there it was. That look she loved so well.

_There you are._

Hawke couldn’t say anything, she didn’t know how. But her eyes were pleading. Anders paused, unsure. She approached him, holding her arms. 

“I thought I would find you here,” she said. 

He was guarded but not hostile.

“Justice felt it was a good idea,” he murmured.

“I see,” she said, awkwardly following him as he moved around the clinic, checking in on patients. A little boy slept in a cot and Anders bent down to check on him, slightly touching his face and frowning. 

“Will he be alright?” Hawke asked and he nodded. 

“For now. This is the only safe care he can find.”

Anders walked back to his desk and shuffled some papers. 

“What do you want, Hawke?”

She followed and stood next to him as he looked over a thick book. Gently, she took his hand and pressed it to her lips, closing her eyes for a moment and taking in the familiar warmth and scent of him. 

“Come home,” she murmured. 

He started to lessen in his frigidity but was still aloof with her. 

“I don’t have a home.”

Hawke winced. She took his face in her hands and smiled, as warmly as she could muster, fighting through the ache. 

“ _Yes, you do_.”

There it was again, the look she loved so well. It was recognition and hope. He took her own hand in his and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry for—”

She shook her head, “Don’t. We’re okay.”

He started to pull away again. 

“For now, maybe. But we won’t always be—”

“Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake, Anders” Hawke said and grabbed his collar. She pressed her lips to his in an attempt to show him exactly how determined she was. What she couldn’t say in words, she could express with her fingers and her lips and her hands and her hips. He stiffened at first but it was usually impossible for him to refuse her for very long. He wrapped an arm around her and held her as tightly as he could. It hurt. She was glad. It reminded her that they were still there and they still had something that mattered. After a moment, she pulled away and rested her forehead on his, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. Hawke forced his gaze.

“You and me,” she said softly. No Justice, no Kirkwall. No Templars or Mages or elves or men. “Just you and me.”


End file.
